Air-conditioners and hot meals: Iraq protest camps dig in for long haul

Baghdad, Iraq (AFP):

In the capital of crisis-torn Iraq, two tent cities have sprung up as rival Shiite blocs have set up protest camps, complete with cooked meals and air-conditioners against the blistering heat.

As the war-scarred country’s political impasse has dragged on ever since inconclusive October elections, both sides are digging in for the long haul in and near Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.

Supporters of firebrand cleric and political kingmaker Moqtada Sadr, who has hundreds of thousands at his beck and call, came in late July when they stormed parliament and then set up camp on the lawns outside.

The gathering is a show of strength by Sadrists against their Shiite opponents from a pro-Iran faction called the Coordination Framework, in the midst of a tug-of-war over Iraq’s political future.

The pro-Iranian group followed suit by organising their own sit-in, on an avenue leading to the Green Zone, the district housing government institutions and foreign embassies.

The camps are organised in the “mawkeb” tradition, where stalls provide food and drinks to pilgrims during Ashura and Arbaeen — two major festivals on the Shiite Muslim calendar — on their journey to the holy city of Karbala.

More than 10 months on from Iraq’s last legislative election, the country still lacks a prime minister and government.

Negotiations to end the crisis have stalled against a backdrop of behind-the-scenes haggling and a flood of bitter invective between the two rival camps.